A World Without
by Travithian Axile
Summary: Castiel is a being of light and air - yet with every day that passes the weight of his vessel anchors him all the more to the earth. Then the angels make him an offer. 5.04 AU, one-shot.


**Title:**A World Without  
**Characters:** Dean, Castiel  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Castiel is a being of light and air, and yet with every day that passes the weight of his vessel anchors him all the more to the earth. Then the angels make him an offer. 5.04 AU.  
**Word Count:** 2146

**Notes: **The voices of the angels are supposed to be in a different font but I have no clue how to do it in . Hence the boldedness which doesn't work nearly as well IMHO. Oh well.

* * *

_Take a look around you at the world you've loved so well,__  
__And bid the ageing empire of Man a last farewell,__  
__It may not sound like Heaven, but at least it isn't Hell,__  
__It's a brave new world,__  
__With just a handful of men,__  
__We'll start,__  
__We'll start all over again…_

Jeff Wayne, "Brave New World"

* * *

_-2012-_

The singing of Castiel's angelic kin is a constant hum at the back of his mind. One by one Castiel has severed his ties to Heaven, all but the last; his grace the one thing he will never rip out and discard as Anael once did, with her longing for the imperfection and zest of human life. It is a small, flickering flame in the pit of his belly but it is still fire from his Father's forge; reminding him of silent flights through the vastness of space, a birth that begun as a deep and abiding love for God gained sentience and all was peace and calm.

Castiel misses that feeling. He misses certainty and the power he once had over demons and humans. But while his grace sputters and struggles to live within the host that keeps his true self pinned to the earth, he is still an angel, more than a man. He is stronger, faster, tougher; useful, enough to earn him a permanent place by Dean's side.

Castiel has seen what happens to those who stumble or fall behind.

That is in the day. Dean spends his nights alone or in the company of women; a pity, because whenever Castiel is alone the song of his brethren is all the louder and then a desire like compulsion will pass through him to add his voice, his _true _voice, to the angelic choir as he once did with unthinking joy not four years ago; so long to unreliable human senses but in truth only a drop in the abyss of time that had first molded him and made him as he was and finally broken him.

Dean would not be pleased if he ends up shattering half the windows and eardrums in the camp. And so Castiel drinks himself to sleep, where the song cannot follow.

* * *

Castiel is unsure when Dean starts calling him "Cass" as a name—not a nickname, once bestowed out of something like wry affection, but an identity, a descriptor that hangs around his diminished self like a chain. Everyone in the camp calls him Cass and they treat him with respect, but it isn't the same as it used to be.

Castiel answers to Cass, Cass the mysterious aloof second-in-command, Cass the human. Is that truly so bad? Is it not nearly the truth?

Castiel catches himself increasingly thinking of Jimmy Novak's body as _his _body, something that had once been the human equivalent of a suit donned for work become comforting and familiar. Castiel's essence is threaded intimately through blood and bone and sinew, waning and waxing with the beat of Jimmy's heart.

That heart had already stopped once, and Castiel stopped with it; destroyed by the archangel Raphael for the sin of disobedience.

Castiel's first dream is of oblivion, the nothing place that is the final rest of angels.

He wakes screaming, red lines scored down his forearms and the sides of his face. There is a terrifying moment before he can feel his wings, gossamer-thin but still _there, _barely held together by pale filaments of grace. He is fortunate that he is too weak to fly anymore, or he might have transported himself halfway across the country in a foolish attempt to escape the Raphael of his imagination.

Dean stands at the door, fully dressed and armed, his face half-masked in shadow. "Bad dream?" he inquires, voice carefully neutral.

Castiel looks down at his hands—Jimmy's hands—twisted around the sheets. "Angels do not dream," he says hoarsely.

The unspoken words pass between them, a brief connection that Castiel suddenly desperately yearns more of. He reaches out before he realizes it, hope fluttering in his chest as Dean leans forward; but it is the cool surface of a plastic bottle that touches Castiel's hand. "Sleeping pills," Dean tosses over his shoulder, already retreating, the cool distant leader once more. "They'll keep the nightmares away."

"You speak from experience," Castiel notes.

Dean lets out a bitter laugh. "Not just me, Cass. You've been late to this party for a while now."

* * *

The voices of Castiel's brethren vibrate through his teeth, broken and discordant where whole garrisons have been wiped from existence, their places in the song unfilled. Castiel knows the sin of envy; he remembers what it was like to die for he believed in. Through the fear and grief and confusion, he had been almost _happy _to die for Dean.

God had to have resurrected him for a purpose. Whatever it is, Castiel is fairly certain it does not involve raiding the medical tent for pills of dubious provenance and washing them down with copious amounts of alcohol just so that he can fly again.

"Just look at you, Cass," Dean mutters with dark humor as he holds Castiel over a sink. "Just look at us all."

Castiel chokes on the taste of failure, wretched and all too human. His fingers curl around the porcelain and he wants to throw open his wings and flee the earthly weight of this vessel and all the misery and wants that come with it; to be unthinking and unfeeling as the fire and air that he was birthed from.

Dean's hand is heavy on his shoulder; Castiel bows his head and tells himself that he can leave anytime.

"Dean," he whispers. "Am I still your friend?"

"What kind of question is that?" Dean says, unsmiling. "Of course you are."

Castiel looks at Dean's face in the mirror and hates that he cannot read it anymore.

* * *

The other angels are aware that he can hear them.

A few even talk to him, in tones of confusion, of curiosity. Why did he do what he did? What it is like, spending so much time with humans, God's most imperfect creations? Why would a human refuse the honor and glory of taking on Michael, God's firstborn, and end the war at a stroke?

Castiel's answer is worn threadbare with usage. _Dean. It was always about Dean. _God is silent but Dean is always there. Castiel can still touch the past in memories; in them all the figure of Dean looms large, from his recreation to Detroit to the man he is now. In them all Castiel is pulled after, lets himself be pulled—he cannot resist even when he is falling because it's for _Dean._

In Kansas City they find a mass grave of angels, the hosts strewn carelessly across roads and streets and buildings. The ground is so blackened with ash that it is impossible to tell the individual wing-trails apart, no place to put their feet without violating the dead.

The angels weep in a frenzy of grief, wings over their faces in mourning. For the first time in a long while they turn to Castiel, reaching instinctively to the spark of the divine within him that is also within them, and he offers what comfort he can.

* * *

Castiel is on guard duty at the gates of the base when it happens.

There is a shiver through the air like an electrical charge and all of a sudden the muted whispering in Castiel's head rises to a roar. He cries out and slams his hands to his ears, unaware of the gun clattering at his feet. Dimly he can sense Risa's hands on his arms and her voice, yelling; but her exertions are no match for the will of angels.

**_We are leaving the earth. Come with us, Castiel. _**

_Lucifer—_

**_Is far stronger than we realized. Let him have his prize; the universe is infinite, and we will claim another home for ourselves._**

_Our Father entrusted us with this world!_

The angels' voices fill with sorrow. **_He has already departed, never to return. It is time we follow Him and seek Him among the stars._**

**_Come with us, Castiel. Cast off your human flesh and fly with us once more._**

_I betrayed the will of Heaven. Why would you still have me?_

The answer comes, wise and compassionate and munificent and it is all the things Castiel wants to hear, secretly, not in his heart but in the last flickers of his true being that is so surely and steadily shackled down to the earth with every breath that he takes.

**_You are still an angel, Castiel. You are one of us._**

Castiel wakes, crying like a child. Dean is bent over him, but he pulls back once Castiel opens his eyes, his expression shifting fluidly to one of blankness. "Hey, man," he says. "I'm fine with the descent into our fun-loving human ways, but you've got to keep off the drugs while you're on the job."

Castiel just stares at him, as though looking for the first time: Dean in his leather jacket and ramrod straight, his hand nowhere near Castiel's and his face vaguely irritated behind the lines of stress. He chooses his words carefully. "I was not intoxicated, Dean. I was contacted. By the angels."

Dean makes an impatient gesture. "If it's about Michael again, you can tell them to shove it up their—"

"They are leaving."

Dean stops, mouth slightly ajar. He recovers quickly, frowning. "Huh. It's not their style to know when to give up. Well, good riddance. There's enough supernatural crap crawling over the earth these days. If you're feeling better now, there's this plan I want to discuss with the team." He turns to go, fully expecting Castiel to follow.

Castiel says to his back, "And…they want me to go with them."

He watches, and waits, for a reaction. Dean is silent for just a second too long, his shoulders rigid under the coat.

Then he says, "If you want to leave, don't let me stop you." And then he walks out.

Castiel gets up and chases after him, ignoring the looks they attract. "Is that all you have to say?" he asks, trying to keep his voice steady. _Doesn't this change anything? _he wants to scream.

"What else is there to say, _Castiel?" _Dean asks, his voice mocking. "This is the offer of a lifetime, isn't it? If I were you, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat."

Castiel stumbles back, the words cutting more deeply than he could have suspected. He searches for a reply that does not sound weak or plaintive, that will take away the anger in Dean's eyes. He does not know why Dean should be angry and it hurts.

"We are friends, Dean," he says. "I would never make such an important decision as this without knowing what you feel about it." He hesitates, swallowing. "Is this your final word on the matter?"

_Please, _he thinks, and is unsure for what, exactly, he is asking for.

"Yes, it is," Dean says bluntly. "I'm not blind, Cass, it's not like you exactly enjoy being human. Heaven hands you a get out of free jail card, you take it, okay?" He gives Castiel a little push. "Just go, Cass."

"The camp…" Castiel falters.

Dean smirks. "I'm sure we'll get by. Somehow." Then with a kindness that is somehow worse than his previous indifference, he pats Castiel on the shoulder. "It isn't like we've been relying on your angel mojo to run this base, Cass," he says lightly. "There're plenty of perfectly capable humans around to take your place."

Castiel is out of excuses.

He wanders around for a while, seeking the companionship of other friends; but none are as close as Dean, no one he can adequately explain himself to. They will only see it as running away; and he supposes that he can hardly blame them.

When he is done, he slips through security on the pretense of a mission from Dean, and does not stop running until he is out of sight behind a screen of trees. _I have said my farewells, brethren, _he calls, speaking in his true voice and it feels right and good despite the strain on his throat. Leaves shiver and fall about him in a shower of green and yellow. _I am ready._

The answer returns almost immediately, an explosion of delight that sends blood trickling from his ears and nose. **_Then we are all ready. Take our hands, Castiel, and arise._**

Jimmy's body catches at him at first, as he slowly undoes the knots and tangles his self has grown around Jimmy the last few years, like a vine on an old house. When he takes his first, faltering steps outside his brothers and sisters are there to catch him as he stumbles, soothing his faded self with strokes of their own grace. They sing with joy at their reunion and catch him up with them, rising heavenward with a beat of their powerful wings. _**This is freedom**, _they tell him. **_We are free._**

_Dean…_

Castiel slips off that last chain and lets the earth fall away beneath him.

_-end-

* * *

_

Ending Notes: Continued in 'Wrecked on A Distant Shore' dealing with the fallout of Cass' decision.


End file.
